CRS is Congress' private research agency, and it prepared a report a few weeks ago on the Comcast/NBC deal. Multichannel News had a look at the document, which has not been publicly released, and notes that it opens with the assumption that the DOJ and FCC will both approve the deal.

What sort of conditions are we likely to see? When AT&T bought BellSouth a few years back, the FCC imposed a host of conditions regarding "naked" DSL and network neutrality, after pressure by the two Democratic commissioners. In this mega-merger, CRS believes the conditions will focus on "competition, diversity of voices, and localism." As for the possibility that Comcast will take NBC onto cable and kill off its network affiliate model, CRS doesn't believe that will happen for both business and political reasons.

We'll know soon enough what conditions are imposed by regulators, but the CRS report points out that the biggest hurdle to the deal's success will probably not be regulators. "The recent history of failed mega-mergers in the communications sector suggests," said the report, "that the vertically integrated post-merger entity may have so many pieces with conflicting market incentives that it proves impossible for executives to craft an internally consistent profit-maximizing business strategy, much less exploit market power to undermine competition."

For evidence, of course, one need look no further than AOL/Time Warner.

16 Reader Comments

That can only be bad for the consumer. Period. Comcast is bad. I may have to move to a community with Comcast, and I wonder if my TiVO HD will still work for me. Not that Time-Warner is doing any better since I was forced to use a Switched Video adapter that routinely can't seem to get some of my favorite channles more than occasionally.

<quote>"The recent history of failed mega-mergers in the communications sector suggests," said the report, "that the vertically integrated post-merger entity may have so many pieces with conflicting market incentives that it proves impossible for executives to craft an internally consistent profit-maximizing business strategy, much less exploit market power to undermine competition."</quote>

So in other words they figure that Comcast/NBC will be too spread out and weakened by the deal to really be a monopoly threat in any one segment of their business?

The government thinks they will be too stupid to figure it out. Can't wait to see how this works out.

This situation where the regulators approve a merger but with a bunch of strings attached really pisses me off. I have never once seen where those strings mitigated the antitrust issues, they are just a grab-bag of restrictions that the regulators wish they could put on everyone, but don't have the power to do so. If there is a legitimate antitrust concern that cannot be prevented, then the companies should not be allowed to merge. If there isn't then they should just approve the merger. But instead the regulators abandon the fundamental principles of a competitive market in exchange for a power grab on their part.

Is anyone surprised that Congress, which is bought and paid for by the media, would approve this atrocity of a deal? Wake up America, your government doesn't represent you they represent the highest bidder and media companies are a much higher bidder than you or me.

Originally posted by 2engels:<quote>"The recent history of failed mega-mergers in the communications sector suggests," said the report, "that the vertically integrated post-merger entity may have so many pieces with conflicting market incentives that it proves impossible for executives to craft an internally consistent profit-maximizing business strategy, much less exploit market power to undermine competition."</quote>

So in other words they figure that Comcast/NBC will be too spread out and weakened by the deal to really be a monopoly threat in any one segment of their business?

The government thinks they will be too stupid to figure it out. Can't wait to see how this works out.

Originally posted by ewelch:That can only be bad for the consumer. Period. Comcast is bad. I may have to move to a community with Comcast, and I wonder if my TiVO HD will still work for me. Not that Time-Warner is doing any better since I was forced to use a Switched Video adapter that routinely can't seem to get some of my favorite channles more than occasionally.

They all suck.

I have had Comcast for years and have not had any troubles getting my TiVo HD to work on its system.

I really hope this doesn't go through. IMO Comcast has clearly shown they have no problem using anti-competitive measures that only make sense when you are the content producer and content provider at the same time. Look at their RSN's like CSN Philly or CSN NW or even their recent and continuing dispute with DirecTV over VS. They seem to have little or no motivation to resolve these carriage disputes and I think it's largely because they view it as a way to weaken their competition in cable/sat television service in those areas. If they weren't both a channel owner and a cable co I believe that all of these would already be resolved.

Wonder how much money or drugs or hookers Comcast/NBC slipped to the federal regulators/congressmen to get the approval? The "strings" will quietly get ignored or not implemented since the regulators are now on the hook to Comcast/NBC. for all the talk the FCC gives about competition, they obviously don't give a rats tushie as long as they get paid. Lots of luck when Comcast starts denying other cable operators from carrying NBC.

Originally posted by mknopp:Is anyone surprised that Congress, which is bought and paid for by the media, would approve this atrocity of a deal? Wake up America, your government doesn't represent you they represent the highest bidder and media companies are a much higher bidder than you or me.

the government is not there for the people, it's there for the benefit of businesses that can afford to pay.